MODERATOR:
OK. We're pleased to be joined by Kurt Busch, driver of the
No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge. Kurt had the third-fastest time out there today
during qualifying for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. His speed was
182.752 miles per hour.

Kurt, take us through your qualifying laps out there this afternoon.

KURT BUSCH:
You know, it was a great feeling just to be in position to
go for the pole, and I had that. The team gave me a great car. That's
really all that you can ask for. It's just a matter of the driver going
out there to do the job. And with the warm-up corner through Turn 4
to take the green, everything was a go. The car had a little bit of a
balance in it toward the loose side to take the green. I went through
Turn 1, thought everything was going pretty smooth. I hit Turn 2, that's
a very important corner to carry the speed down the back straightaway.
Everything was great. Turn 3 maybe got in there a little light, just
because now the temperatures started to build up in the tires, the
pressure started building up. And Turn 4, just got a little bit too
tight, and I think that's where we lost the pole. But to talk about
seven-thousandths of a second, it's almost as if we do have the pole,
we're just not going to be written down as the guy that got the pole. So
it was a great lap.

We'll start third and it's inside second row. To have The Captain on my
side this time around, that's the best feeling in the world, to drive
for him at this place. So it gives us a great momentum into the practice
sessions this afternoon and for Sunday's race, of course. So we'll see
what we can get dialed in this afternoon.

MODERATOR:
Thank you, Kurt.

If you have a question, please raise your hand. Please identify
yourself, name and affiliation. If you have a question, please raise
your hand. Any questions for Kurt?

BUSCH:
Come on, it was seven-thousandths of a second. (Laughter)
Everybody is upstairs, right? (Laughter)

Q:
Is there any extra force being put on you guys, you and Ryan, to try
and win for Penske here, to win a NASCAR win at Indianapolis compared to
14 wins in the Indy 500?

BUSCH:
It's something that it's very special for Roger when he comes
here to race here and to go for the win like he does all the time. To
have the stock car group here this weekend with a little bit more weight
because he won here in May, it does throw a little bit of pressure in
there. It's a great feeling. It's fun. You know, he's heavily involved
with the teams, but yet when you come to Indy, we step it up a little
bit more. The car that we built, I think it's had a couple different
bodies on it before it even hit the racetrack just to make it even
better. So we had a legitimate shot at the pole today. I think we came
up just a little bit short just due to our pill draw when we went out.
We were right in the middle; track temp went up 18 degrees since it
started.

It's great to be in position to go for the win right now because we were
that close for the pole. We'll see what we can do this afternoon for
practice, get it ready for tomorrow's race.

MODERATOR:
Question back here.

Q:
How's married life?

BUSCH:
It's been great. It's just the full circle. The feeling of being
complete is definitely something very special to me and to Eva. She's
a great gal to be married to. I'm happy with that. It's almost similar
to, you know, my relationship with Roger and his team, to be in that
situation and to feel complete. I'm very happy with both situations,
driving for Roger; and when Eva let's me drive the boat, everything's
great. (Laughter)

MODERATOR:
Any other questions? Right here.

Q:
How much do you guys pay attention to Penske's IRL team and how much
do they kind of pay attention to how you guys are doing?

BUSCH:
You know, we all work out of our different garages, you can say,
and each has their own group of guys, sponsors. Some of the sponsors
do share on the cars such as Penske Truck Rentals on my Grand National
car and they're on the front nose cone of the IRL team. But we all
get pumped up when another Penske team does well, such as the Porsche
program won its first race this year. To see Roger just acting as if
he's owned that series this year, he's won almost all the races. He's
got both of his guys up in the points. It's great to see that, and it's
motivation for the Cup program to step up and to run parallel with that
IRL deal.

But, you know, for him to struggle the last couple of seasons in IRL
because they didn't quite have the power, now they have that power, now
they're almost dominating. So to see his vision and to see how he puts
things together, it's just exciting anticipating the future on what he
sees with myself, with Roy McCauley as a team and what he sees in Ryan
Newman and Matt Borland together. That's what we look forward to is
his vision and what he sees in his racing. Right now the IRL team is
definitely benefiting from him just tasting the fruits, you can say,
from his wisdom. I think the Cup program will get there shortly.